


Swimming Pools

by ForGodsSake



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bang Chan is Whipped, Bang Chan is a Sweetheart, Cuddles, Dates, Dorks in Love, First Dates, First Kisses, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Lee Minho | Lee Know is Whipped, Lifeguard Bang Chan, M/M, Minho almost drowns cus he can't swim, Minho finally learns to swim, Mutual Pining, Sassy Minho, Slice of Life, Soft Boys, and it's also in a foreign language, chan is a swimming teacher, near death experienc if you squint, pls bare with me, they're all just crackheads, this is the first thing I published in nearly 5 years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForGodsSake/pseuds/ForGodsSake
Summary: It will be fun, he said, that it would create memories.There will be an area where you can stand, Hyung, nobody's going to notice that you can't swim.Jisung is a liar, he sourly thought while the water gently swashed around his hips.Minho, 21 and non-swimmer finds himself in the most uncomfortable situation while almost drowning.The good thing? He gets saved.The bad thing, said hero wants to give him some swimming lessons.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Swimming Pools

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, golden to see ya here!  
> Just a short information, English isn't my mother tongue and although a friend of mine proofread this thing (or at least the first half of it) you might stumble upon some mistakes (pls say if you find any, so that I can correct them and learn to get better at what I'm doing!)  
> Also, here's a lil playlist for this story if ya interested → [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rLCJHpdgXWqdeDrUlF2QX?si=HTocCHQPQPuCc_YvNwq00g](url)  
> And with those words, I will release you to read this thing and wish you a lot of fun!

Right, he thought as the tip of his foot breached the surface of the crystal-clear pool water beneath him.

Fucking right This was a full-fledged disaster. How on earth could he let himself be talked into this? He couldn't even fucking swim.  
What on earth had gotten into him when he begrudgingly gave into Jisung’s constant pleading to just come with them.

 _It will be fun_ , he said, that it would create memories. _There will be an area where you can stand, Hyung, nobody's going to notice that you can't swim._

 _Jisung is a liar_ , he sourly thought while the water gently swashed around his hips. There was no way in hell that all these people around him wouldn't notice that he, a fully-grown man in his 20s, was just splashing around, alone, in the kid’s zone, because all of his so-called friends had decided to ditch him (leaving him with nothing more than a ball that had a hole in it and therefore had to be blown up every ten minutes) in order to determine, once and for all, which one of them was the best swimmer.

Groaning, he smacked the deflating disgrace of a ball onto the surface in front, letting his body sink deeper into the water until it gently reached the tips of his shoulders.  
How was he supposed to live through this day, when he already started getting bored after just half an hour of being there?

Time began to start feeling like sticky glue running through his fingers.

"You okay there?" Startled by the suddenness of an unknown voice to his right, he swallowed a big gulp of the chlorinated water. Coughing, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration to get rid of the remaining pee and chemical filled liquid in his airways, he turned around to the person that had dared to intrude his brooding, causing him to wish he could disinfect his insides, just to lay eyes on a boy in red swim trunks, squatting at the pool side. A tuft of smooth, brown curls adorning his head, skin white like whipped cream.

Minho wondered how that was even in the realm of possibility, being a lifeguard and all.  
Being exposed to so much sun should've at least given him some color, either in form of giving him a slight resemblance to a cooked lobster or soft caramel.

"Are you okay, mate? You kinda looked like you were ready to drown yourself right there." While he had been ready to respond with a snarky remark before, everything in Minho came to a sudden halt, upon seeing the genuine concern in the guy’s features.

"Yeah," he said, fiddling with the now almost deflated ball in his hands, causing small sprinkles of water to land on his face. "I’m just bored." If whipped cream guy would ask why, there was no way in hell he would be upfront about his non-existent swimming skills.  
No.  
Never.  
Not in a billion years.

"And the reason for that? Didn't you arrive with quite a big group, did all of them just leave you like that? Why didn't you join them in their fun? You not up for some good old competitive swimming?" Minho was confused. The boy had actually paid attention to their group and saw their arrival? Why was he even bothering to talk to him?  
But most of all, why did he ask so many freaking questions that were definitely not part of his job description.  
Wasn’t he supposed to like...prevent people from drowning by keeping an eye on them instead of focusing on a dude he didn't know? 

Minho was pretty certain that by talking to him, cream boy would not be able to perform at his job to the best of his abilities. And that talking to the guests, just because they seemed lonely, wasn't part of his responsibilities.

"No, I am actually not that much into swimming," he answered vaguely, avoiding the big, brown eyes that observed him like he was some dead frog it got to examine.  
Or to make it less disgusting, looked at him like you would at something that you didn't quite understand but still wanted to get a hold of. 

"Aren't you a tad bit too much into other people’s business?" he snapped a little more abrasive than intended. And yet, even though it was true, he still cursed internally at his mouth for being faster than his brain.  
Yet again.

Upon Minho's snarky remark, the cute boy’s face seemed to falter and with it, the playful glint in his eyes.

"I, yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I just...it seemed like you were lonely, and I thought...yeah you know, never mind. I shouldn't have...I should really head back to work. Before, you know, someone actually drowns. Sorry, again." Letting his head hang in discomfort, scratching the back of his neck, he made his way to where he apparently had to go to priorly, leaving Minho with the sour feeling of guilt churning in his stomach.

***

Sighing, he turned on the tap, splashing drizzles of icy water to his heated face in an attempt to chase the exhaustion and boredom, that coated him from the inside out, away.

By now, it had been two hours of him waiting unsuccessfully for his friends return, (of which one he had spent lurking around the flat water, until he decided to just head back to their loungers) and it was starting to get on his nerves.  
Trying to read some papers he still had to sort through for university, he had ended up listening to music, while absentmindedly scrolling through Tumblr instead.

Although he thought that he had seen Jisung’s blond thatch, over by a group of girl, talking with his whole body again (but that could have been him projecting out of need for them to finally get the fuck back.), there was still no sign of his friends returning.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door, his mind still lingering on the unwell feeling that had settled in his gut after his previous misbehavior.

That poor guy had just wanted to be nice, and Minho had acted like a total jackass. Yet again.  
The only good thing he could take from all of this was that he'd never have to step foot in this place again. Now armed with a good excuse, other than him not being able to swim, should they ever come to the brilliant idea to ask him to tag along once more.  
What he'd certainly not do, ever again.

As he made his way around the next corner, lost in thoughts, he didn't notice the fast approach of little feet slapping on tiled concrete heading his direction.

"Sohee!" someone’s squeaky voice echoed through the suddenly too silent hall and time seemed to pass in slow motion, making him feel like being stuck in the outer worlds, when the protagonist first stumbles upon their ability to stretch out their perception of time.

However, he wasn't able to turn the events about to happen around, as the little girl’s feet lost their grip on the ground, sending her headfirst into his body making him lose his balance as well as his breath.

And with his loosing balance, came the inescapable fate of losing his footing on the wet tiles.

Time returned to its normal pace as his body crashed through the glistening surface behind, water engulfing him in an uncomfortable hug from every angle, while the air inside his lungs found its way out in a shocked rush of bubbles, being replaced by an involuntary big gulp of chlorine tasting madness.

From there on, everything happened so fast but simultaneously not fast enough, it seemed to blur into one big, indistinguishable chunk of pictures, making it near impossible to comprehend.

He just knew that he was panicking, sinking, seeing his life and all the embarrassing instances that came along with it, as well as the stuff he was going to regret for never doing, flash before his eyes, thinking about how dumb this way to die was, and how the newspapers would certainly not let it sound any better.

The headline would probably read something like:

**"Landlubber in his twenties, knocked over by five-year old, drowned in public swimming pool"**

And in the next instance, as his body started to spasm, his mind fogged up and his vision shrunk rapidly, a blurry shadow arose above him and an uncomfortably tight grip under his arms hoisted him out of his personal hell.

With a splat, his body was being pushed onto the floor, where he immediately rolled sideways, heaving out swells of water from his lungs.  
His ears were ringing as if someone sat him right next to a warning bell, let alone the cloudy feeling his brain was plunged in, and the tunnel that frayed the edges of his vision into darkness.

Not able to process anything around him yet, he didn't take immediate notice of the hand that was rubbing gentle circles onto the skin of his back nor the concern laced voices of his friends that stood in a circle around him, shielding him from the prying eyes of curious bystanders.

Slowly the feeling of cotton clogging his ear started to fade, letting the first few bits of sentences, he couldn’t make sense of, get through. 

“Hey, everything’s going to be alright. Just keep on breathing, yeah just like that. Slowly In... and... out, perfect.” gaining his senses back, little by little, he got super aware of the warm, soothing rounds someones hand was running on his back.

As well as the fact, that he knew that voice.  
He sure as hell did, because it had been the cause of some of his former distress. Before he almost drowned himself.  
Groaning he swatted the hand away, and tried to get up, failing miraculously at it. His limbs didn’t even try to respond to his intents and just left him with no other option than to give in, and let himself get pulled up bridal style.

And all that just because his body felt like someone had crushed and left him without one functioning bone in this fleshy jail of his. Like a limp leave, he just sagged into the embrace and closed his eyes to get rid of the little dots that seemed to swish through his vision.

He just assumed his friends would follow the lifeguard, in whose arms he was hanging right now, to wheresoever. A hot uncomfortable feeling of shame seeped through his veins, coating his insides making him wish for the floor to just open up and swallow him.

“There you go,” gently placed atop something soft, he took in a deep breath. The air in the room he’d been brought to smelled of mint underlined with the for this place typical stench of chlorine. Although it was less succinct here than it had been in the area before. “I think your friends might want a moment with you alone. Just tell one of the lifeguards before you go okay?” and gone he was. Leaving Minho back, with the worried glare of four pairs of eyes fixed on him.

“Are you,” started Felix, fiddling nervously with his fingers. 

“Okay?” finished Jisung, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. While Jeongin and Hyunjin just stared at him expectantly. Awaiting his answer. 

“I mean, I’m still breathing. That should suffice as a good enough sign. Although my throat hurts like shit and I really, really want to go home.” resonated his raspy voice in the almost too quiet room. He just really wanted to get home. To cuddle with his cats and drink some tea. And maybe, just maybe, wear one of these super soft T-Shirts Jisung got him for his last birthday.

“We’re so sorry Hyung. We should have gotten back to you a lot earlier.” Felix locked down like a kicked puppy and Minhos heart churned in return. He didn’t like to see him sad, or any of his friends for that matter.  
Sure, he liked to tease and maybe be a little salty from time to time, but he genuinely didn’t like his friends to feel guilty over something that wasn’t in their power. His former anger about their abandonment, just evaporated, making place for exhaustion and tiredness instead. He still felt dizzy, which was probably because of the oxygen shortage he had gone under in the water.

“It’s alright guys, seriously. I just genuinely want to go home tho. So if one of you could maybe go grab our things and...call Jackson Hyung to check if he could pick us up, that’d be golden.” Like a group of baby ducklings all four of them tried to squish through the narrow door frame at once, resulting in them almost tumbling over one another. Sighing, Minho rubbed his itchy eyes. What idiots.

Giving the room he was in a once-over, noticing the cracked wall with the calendar with a photo of a girl in a red bathing suit lolling around a beach, raised questions inside of Minho, if this room was even supposed to be accessible to people that weren’t working here. 

A knock on wood startled him out of his examination, letting his gaze wander to the open door, in which the guy that saved him stood. A cup with some steaming beverage inside and a sheepish smile adorning his lips, avoiding Minhos eyes.

“Here, I made you tea. Thought you could need one after you know, before.” thankfully Minho took the warm cup in between his hands. Giving the guy in his red trunks a soft smile. 

“Lee Minho,” dumbfounded the guy just stared at him as if he’d grown a third eye or second head. “That’s my name. I mean, in case you’d like to know.” he bashfully added. Taking a deep steadying breath he smelled the herbs of the tea with the slight underlying sweetness of honey. 

“Oh,” his eyebrows shoot up, eyes slightly widening while a brown curl fell into his eyes as his lips formed themselves around the little sound, his nose lightly scrunched up. In the harsh light of the strip light, his skin just seemed even more translucent than it had before. “Oh, yeah I, thank you! I’m Christoph- I mean Chris no, wait Chan. I mean Bang Chan. Sorry, I’ve just recently returned from my trip to Australia, still have to get used to Chan after two weeks of being called Chris again.” 

“Actually, I have, you could call it, an offer for you?” interest sparked, Minho nodded, eyebrows perched expectantly, waiting for what was to come.

“I thought, to prevent something like this from happening again, I could give you some swimming lessons? For free of course.” sheepishly Chan rubbed his neck, while he worried his lip in between his teeth. And where his ears really getting red or was Minho hallucinating now?

What? 

"No!” was the only thing leaving his mouth a dumbfounded expression lacing his features.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, now that you've reached the end of the first chapter, this fic is roughly planned out although it could be that it gets more chapters. That depends on how well I will do in the next planned steps as well as in the writing processes!  
> I hope you'll stick with me on this journey and I would love to read your opinions on this story!  
> Come scream at me on my Tumblr: [https://straykidsconsumedmewholly.tumblr.com/](url)  
> (Oh, and thanks for reading the first chapter) ~ c: <\- that's me, a happy sperm


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